


Dry Riverbeds

by the_last_dillards



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Dark, Emotional displacement, Jealousy, M/M, Self-Hatred, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:54:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28511508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_last_dillards/pseuds/the_last_dillards
Summary: A frustrated Garak watches the Chief from afar.
Relationships: Elim Garak/Miles O'Brien, Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 12
Kudos: 52





	Dry Riverbeds

**Author's Note:**

> This is kinda a weird one. Darkly horny. Lemme know if I’m missing any tags. 
> 
> Warning for nondescriptive noncon-ish fantasies from the POV of the victim. 
> 
> Takes place sometime leading up to Empok Nor.

Garak stared across Quark’s. There, down below and across the room from his perch on the second level, was Miles O’Brien, sitting at the bar and taking another swig of his drink. Morn sat next to him, saying something that had the Chief nodding along and chuckling. 

Garak didn’t bother hiding his gaze. Rather, he hoped that the Chief would pick up on it. Maybe then he could get the man to confront him, start a fight, goad him in taking a swing, and maybe even a tackle. 

The thought was invigorating.

A sturdy body relentlessly pressing him down and pinning him. Hard hands gripping at his scales, finding purchase on his ridges. A ruddy face close to his own, invading his space. Perhaps Garak could even get a bite in as he feigned fighting back, letting the Chief pummel him but taking his own share of blood as he punctured disconcertingly soft and pale flesh with his teeth.

Maybe then, he could find a glimmer of understanding as to why this man out of all people managed to best him at every turn. 

But as Garak looked on, either the Chief refused to acknowledge him—unlikely; he wasn’t one to let his discomfort or displeasure go unknown—or simply didn’t notice him. 

How it rankled Garak’s scales.

What did Julian possibly see in him? What was it about the brusk engineer that had made the good doctor fret, trying to impress and please for so long despite rejection after rejection?

Garak had watched it all unfold in those first few years, keeping his judgments of those involved to himself. 

Watching Julian, a grown man, throw himself at his colleagues, desperately searching for any form of companionship, had been a somewhat embarrassing affair. Embarrassing but also understandable. Garak had been lonely too, after all, but where he’d had the wire to numb the worst of the pain, Julian hadn’t been so lucky.

If he himself hadn’t found Julian so devastatingly attractive and had the doctor made such a heavy handed approach to him, would he have allowed it? Would he have given him a chance?

The answer was likely not, so long as he’d had his eyes on another Starfleet officer to serve as his go between. He would’ve assumed that Julian was the same as every other poorly socialized, arrogant, and rising young man he’d come across; self centered and incapable of complex thought.

But that line of contemplation was irrelevant. The way it had all played out was that Garak had welcomed Julian’s company (and would’ve welcomed it in other forms as well) and had been the only one to do so. No one else had given him a chance, the least of all Chief O’Brien.

And that was the bite of it. That now, after everything they’d suffered and overcome together, when there had once been a time that Garak was the only being in the quadrant who gave him the time of day, when O’Brien had only accepted the doctor’s friendship at his leisure and convenience, Julian consistently chose to prioritize the Chief.

It was infuriating. Had Garak truly been nothing more than a passing distraction for Julian until he could obtain the attention of those lesser, small-minded beings that he truly wanted?

There was a pang of hurt in his chest, and Garak ruthlessly shoved the feeling down. Such weakness was disallowable. Instead, he did his best to fill the void with safer things. Closest at hand were fervorous anger and passionate jealousy, and he let them roil and expand to fill the empty space. It was better that way. Easier. Especially because those two feelings were directed solely at the Chief.

Yes, the Chief. Miles O’Brien; a deceptively simple man in that he truly was just as simple as he appeared.

Garak had never thought of anyone as a nemesis before Julian had attempted to engulf him with his spy genre rubbish. Cardassians didn’t even have a word to describe such a consistent and personal enemy. (Any enemy worth being an enemy became an enemy of the state.) And yet, somehow the Chief had managed to earn that title in his mind. 

If Garak hadn’t thought the station would fall into dreadful disrepair and soon become inhabitable without him, he would’ve already arranged an accident for the Chief long ago.

Down at the bar, Quark set a plate of something in front of O’Brien, and he used his fingers to pick up a piece, shoving it into his mouth and managing to smear dark sauce across his cheek.

Clumsy oaf.

Garak wished he could say that if Julian was the best of humanity, the epitome of all it could be and the things it did right, then the Chief was the epitome of all it did wrong. But that wasn’t even the case. He may put several distasteful qualities on display—leading with careless emotion and sentimentality, a lack of subtlety or discretion—but he was hardly a wretch. 

Even, there were some qualities that Garak found admirable in him; his devotion to his family and his ability to put his duty above them when needed.

But the one thing Garak found unforgivable was a mind that didn’t know itself. 

Garak was positive that despite the looks and the touches and the hours spent every week in Julian’s company using him as a replacement for his wife, the Chief was totally unaware of his own attraction.

It was infuriating to watch. 

All the little ways he flaunted and showed off for Julian who only ever egged him on. 

Insipid little tricks. 

Hitting the center of a circle with a projectile. Tossing sand peas and catching them with his mouth. Last second saves on the racquetball court.

Meaningless feats that were fawned over and rewarded anyways with a hand on an arm and awed encouragements to do more.

Garak could very easily do the same. Darts were nothing compared to knives and Order training for hand-eye coordination was second to none. But what would Garak get for it? At best, a few friendly cheers that devolved into eye rolling and being labelled a show off with repeat performances. 

That in and of itself wouldn’t be an undesirable reaction. It could, after all, lead to a great many enjoyable arguments. But it was the principal of the thing. The inanities that the Chief was allowed to get away with but he was not.

Quite frankly, their relationship was inappropriate. 

The Chief was a married man, and Garak knew Julian to be self aware enough of an individual that he had to be aware of the attraction between them even if the Chief wasn’t.

He had to know the way he was leading him on by spending nearly all his free time with him. Darts, racquetball, holosuites, drinking. And the habit continued even when Keiko was on station. Yet Garak was afforded only a single measly lunch per week, frequently cancelled or cut short.

No. Those sorts of thoughts wouldn’t do. He was getting too close to blaming Julian for their distance. To redirecting his malcontent towards the wrong source.

It was a nasty game the Chief was playing, luring Garak’s single closest companion away from him. Particularly when he took Julian’s precious company so easily for granted.

Perhaps Garak should play the same trick; court Keiko and seduce her away from the Chief. He had it on good authority that the O’Brien’s marriage was already on rocky grounds and Garak had much more in common with her than her husband. 

He could make her feel wanted, understood. Be the sympathetic hand on her shoulder and feed into her resentment of the Chief’s emotional disregard and distraction with Julian. Was Keiko the sort of woman who when neglected would turn towards other sources of comfort and let them get too close? It was hard to say. 

But finding out wouldn’t fix the source of the problem. In fact, it would likely only make it worse, driving Julian and the Chief further into each other’s arms.

It was only too easy to imagine. The Chief come sniffing around to Julian’s quarters, looking for a sympathetic ear, and Julian, body soft and warm, putting an understanding hand on his shoulder, all too willing to give it.

The mental imagery brought Garak’s blood to a boil for all the right and the wrong reasons. There was the anger, the disgust, the jealousy that belonged there, yes. But there was also something else, something much more primal.

Because as much as he felt intense dislike for the chief, frustration over his closeness to Julian, and a general distaste for his personality, he couldn’t help but to feel attraction of all things.

It was his body’s betrayal. His shame. 

Conflict was deeply intertwined with Cardassian sexuality. A display of aggression and warning was just as good as a siren’s call to mate and traditionally, often served as both simultaneously. 

It was efficient. An ancient method dating back to their earliest ancestors of resolving interpersonal conflict so that only the most necessary and unavoidable of fights would happen.

Very simply, Garak was honed to feel a certain allure to those he took issue with. (Even he and Dukat had once had their drunken fumble.)

Still, it was mortifying. Devastating to his sense of self respect.

Perhaps if the Chief looked more like Julian, the affront wouldn’t be quite so scalding. Julian was someone any Cardassian would be hard pressed not to feel anything for; passionate on all fronts with a long neck and sharp collar bones to accent. The only thing he was missing were the ridges. The Chief, however, was about as far from the Cardassian standard of beauty as one could get; stout and rounded around the edges

Garak hated the undertones of want that coursed through him even as he watched the Chief finally notice the smudge on his cheek and wipe it off with a napkin. 

It wasn’t the only dirt on his face. The Chief must have been crawling around the access conduits in the old ore processing center because he was filthy. Forehead, arms, and uniform streaked with tarnish. Garak could just imagine the poignant fumes that must be rolling from that body, putrid human sweat soaked into his clothes. Yet somehow the Chief had thought it appropriate to sit down to lunch in public that way. That faux-pas alone should turn him off of the man, not intrigue him with thoughts of filth.

And there were the bared forearms. Garak was well aware that the gesture didn’t have the same meaning to humans as it did to him, but his eye couldn't help but to be drawn to the brazenness of the act. For a Cardassian man to show them off, perfectly good cloth pushed off to the side to reveal vulnerable wrists full of veins and strong muscles just above, it was beyond lewd. 

His bad habits were rubbing off on Julian as well. Just the other day, Garak had seen the good doctor out and about looking tousled, the proper high neck of his uniform unzipped below the collarbone and sleeves pushed up to his elbows. It had made him angry as much as it had fed the fire within him. 

How dare he look so devastatingly seductive when Garak knew he couldn’t have him?

But it was hardly fair for him to hold Julian to another culture’s standards. It had been an innocent, unknowing act, not meant as a personal slight.

With the Chief though, it felt like he was being mocked. See here the exile! Watch him sit sad and alone, surrounded by half naked alien men!

Yes, Garak knew he was pathetic. Pathetic enough to long for intimate contact in any way he could get it.

There were fantasies he had of Julian. Of him coming into Garak’s shop after a long day and looking for some relief, pulling Garak into a dressing room or having him over the bench. Garak finally agreeing to a physical, only to find out the exam was much more invasive than he would’ve thought (or dared hope.) Julian stopping by his quarters at an hour much too late for visitors. Julian making an overture during lunch. The list went on and on.

But there were his fantasies of the Chief as well. Ones that sated the frustration, resentment, _distemper_ that roiled through him. In these, more often than not, it was Garak taking the brunt of the encounter's frenzy. The Chief asserting dominance over him and putting him in his place. Punishing him. Because Garak knew at the core of it all that if he felt this way, it was his own fault. 

He was the one who had ignored the cardinal rule of his teachings, had let his own emotions (including sentiment, the worst of them all), cloud his judgement. No wonder Cardassia would never take him back. He was useless to her this way.

A familiar scene played out in his mind’s eye. The Chief coming into his shop to complain about some inanity. A pant leg that was cut too long perhaps. Garak would wave it off, dismiss the complaint as an illusion of the feeble human mind. That would be his mistake.

Feeble of mind? To be determined. But feeble of body, the Chief was not.

He would grab ahold of Garak’s tunic and slam him against a wall. And Garak, in his infinite wisdom, would say some witty retort that would only get him thrown around some more, ending with him bent over his workbench, trousers pooled around his knees, meaty hands holding his hips in place, and a hard, hot, human cock slamming away inside of him.

Garak would loath any contact, of course. Even if simply to save face. Would struggle, fight, but feel a pleasure in the encounter nonetheless. Some deep seated primal urge to connect with his enemy in the most intimate of ways fulfilled.

And then when it was over, when Garak had been properly put in his place and agreed to modify the garments, his body left full of sticky semen and covered in even stickier, stinking human sweat, the Chief would go on his happy way, ready to take Julian out to the holosuite for more of their little war games.

“More kanar?”

Garak whipped his head around to find Quark standing over his table with a fresh bottle. He nodded, mentally berating himself for allowing himself to get so distracted, and Quark refilled his glass.

As he poured, he spoke, “Look, I don’t know or care what he’s done to get on your naughty list but just don’t kill him alright? If you do, then my brother will cry and he won’t stop for a week. Nog too for that matter. And then there’ll be no one left who knows how to fix the holosuites, and the holo emitters are starting to get fuzzy again, and that’s bad for business because who wants a date that’s all pixelated and blurry around the edges? And on that note, make sure his hands can still hold a coupler too. ”

Garak narrowed his eyes and then reversed course, sliding a vapid smile onto his face. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about Quark.”

Quark capped the bottle. He held it in front of his body with both hands as if it could somehow protect him.

“Chief O’Brien. You've been staring at him for at least fifteen minutes. Frankly, I’m surprised he hasn’t noticed yet. Even with the house’s signature broiled palukoo legs to keep him occupied. On sale, by the way. Buy one, get one twenty-five percent off.”

Garak let the smile drop a fraction, and Quark hurriedly continued on.

“I’m just saying. You-know-who could be anywhere. If he catches you staring him down and then something happens, he’s going to put two-and-two together.”

Quark's eyes darted nervously around the room, landing on the nearby chairs and a salt shaker.

“Thank you for your advice,” Garak said in a tone that advertised exactly how unsolicited it had been. “As it was, I hardly think admiring a handsome figure is a crime, now is it?”

“You can’t mean…?”

“Yellow fur is quite the exotic look. What is it humans say? I wonder if the carpet matches the drapes?”

Quark blanched. The best lies were always the truth.

“I’m going to find a way to add a surcharge to your tab for giving me that image. You ought to come by for stand-up night sometime. You’ve got a real sense of humor,” he muttered.

Garak took a pointed sip from his glass.

Quark lingered.

“You know, if you brought Doctor Bashir in here more often for your book club, then I’ve calculated that you would be saving—”

 _“Goodbye,_ Quark.”

Quark shrugged and moved off to pester other patrons.

Garak glanced back down to where the Chief had been only to find an empty seat and plate in his place. He scowled at it and knocked back his glass, draining it before getting up to leave. Keiko had left a pile of clothes with him that needed various adjustments and repairs the day before, and ever since Cardassia had announced their allying with the Dominion, business had been very slow indeed.

Station residents had begun clearing out again, and those left either had been around long enough that they seemed to trust Garak implicitly, the defanged and declawed sad old tailor who would expedite that dress order for you, or only knew him as the foreigner from a hostile land who couldn't be trusted to repair a ripped seam. 

It was strangely reminiscent of that first year after the Federation had come, what with all the tension and anxiety that filled the air. Only now, he himself had much more to worry about, and he didn't have the luxury of the wire to fall back on nor Julian's reliable company.

It was only a matter of time before everything boiled over. If the Dominion took the station, no doubt Garak would be left behind again. This time to his death. But that hardly mattered right now. His despair could wait, pushed down with every other unacceptable feeling that plagued him. 

There was work to be done. The Chief's pants needed hemming.

**Author's Note:**

> Garak has uhhh unresolved emotional issues. This fic originally was meant to be much more ‘Cardassians are horny for people they don’t get along with and so Garak secretly finds Miles to be kinda sexy’ and ended up becoming whatever the above is. 
> 
> Every kudo and comment is a visit to the therapist for Garak.


End file.
